Religion Newswriters Association Bashes Islam

"Top 10 Stories of The Millennium" includes event that never took place!

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Among the top 10 stories of the millennium, according to the Religion Newswriters Association, is "Islam's expansion into Africa, Europe and Asia, including its move into India (1190-1200), resulting in the destruction of most of the subcontinent's indigenous Buddhist culture."

There's just one problem with this story. Islam did not destroy Buddhist culture. Buddhism never really caught on in India. It was absorbed into Hinduism.

It's worth reading what Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said about Islam's expansion in "The Discovery of India." Pandit Nehru, together with Mahatma Gandhi, and Maulana Abul Kalam Azad led India's independence movement. Pandit Nehru, a Hindu, and India's first prime minister had this to say:

-- "frequent intercourse [trade and cultural relations] led to Indians
getting to know the religion, Islam. Missionaries also came to spread the new
faith and they were welcomed. Mosques were built. There was no objection raised
either by the state or the people, nor were there any religious conflicts."

-- "Mahmud's raids are a big event in Indian history, . . . Above all they
brought Islam, for the first time, to the accompaniment of ruthless military
conquest. So far, for over 300 years, Islam had come peacefully as a religion
and taken its place among the many religions of India without trouble or
conflict. . . Yet when he [Mahmud] had established himself as a ruler . . .
Hindus were appointed to high office in the army and the administration."

-- "It is thus wrong and misleading to think of a Moslem invasion of India
or of the Moslem period in India, just as it would be wrong to refer to the
coming of the British to India as a Christian invasion, or to call the British
period in India a Christian period. Islam did not invade India; it had come to
India some centuries earlier."

-- "As a warrior he [Akbar] conquered large parts of India, but his eyes were
set on another and more enduring conquest, the conquest of the minds and hearts
of the people. . . throughout his long reign of nearly fifty years from 1556
onwards he laboured to that end."

Although Muslims ruled India for several centuries, Hinduism remained the dominant religion, and Sikhism, a new religion combining Islam and Hinduism, was born. King Akbar even tried to form a new religion, Din Elahi, combining the best of several religions, but it attracted few followers.

Islam attracted a following in India for the same reasons that it did in North Africa.

Jawaharlal Nehru had this to say about Islam's spread: "North Africa was torn with internecine conflicts between rival Christian factions, leading often to bloody struggles for mastery. The Christianity that was practised there at the time was narrow and intolerant and the contrast between this and the general toleration of the Moslem Arabs, with their message of human brotherhood, was marked. It was this that brought whole peoples, weary of Christian strife, to their side."

Perhaps the most striking example of Islam's peaceful spread is Indonesia. The largest Muslim country, with more than 200 million people spread over 3000 island, was never invaded by Muslims. Islam was spread by the example of traders.

The Hindu scholar, and noted historian, Dr. Bishambhar Nath Pande said, "history was compiled by European writers whose main objective was to produce histories that would serve their policy of divide and rule."

We're reminded of Dorothy Gilliam's column of Dec. 20, 1997 for the Washington Post. Ms. Gilliam wrote, "Newsrooms that do not reflect America's diversity do their readers an injustice. They fail to tell the stories of its citizens, they give readers a distorted image of themselves and they grossly twist the reality of minority groups."

We've asked Debra Mason, Executive Director, Religion Newswriters Association, where are the facts to support the statement that Islam's expansion into India resulted in "the destruction of most of the subcontinent's indigenous Buddhist culture?" Ms. Mason has yet to respond.

If the Religion Newswriters Association is regurgitating discredited history, and can't be bothered to check their findings with respected Muslim scholars, one has to question either their competence or their integrity.